


Spiral Wreath

by Rubynye



Category: DC Comics
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:32:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three winter holidays for Dick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiral Wreath

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a Winter Holiday five things, but couldn't make two of them work and eventually had to cut my losses. I apologize for that.

Spiral Wreath: Three Winter Holiday Ficlets  
Fandom: DC Comics  
Rating: light R  
Pairings: Dick/various  
Disclaimer: They're not mine. Just the order of the words is.   
Thanks to: [](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/profile)[**petronelle**](http://petronelle.livejournal.com/), [](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/profile)[**brown_betty**](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/) and [](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/profile)[**maelithil**](http://maelithil.livejournal.com/) for their customary wonderfulnesses.  
Author's Notes: I wanted to write a Winter Holiday five things, but couldn't make two of them work and eventually had to cut my losses. I apologize for that.

 

"Well, I think a mistletoe hat'd be cool." Roy balances on the back of the sofa, because Dick's doing a handstand on the tippy chair by the fireplace. The scarily ornate, really ancient-looking chair. Dick shifts to one hand, legs straight, and Roy swears under his breath and nearly wobbles.

He's not gonna let Dick psych him out. Especially not even on purpose. "Anyway. What'd you get your girlfriend for Christmas?"

Dick wobbles, for one awesome, terrifying moment. Watching Dick fold up, Roy can't breathe till he realizes Dick's just sitting down; still, his heart bangs against his ribs as Dick drops into the chair, slumped under a sudden attack of the blues. "Nothing," Dick mumbles. "Michelle dumped me."

"Dumped _you_?" Roy nearly adds 'I'd never dump you if I were a girl,' but fortunately keeps himself from saying anything so incredibly gay. Instead he slides down onto the sofa. "What's wrong with her?"

Dick continues looking wilted. "She wants a normal boyfriend? The kind who'll let her put her hands under his shirt when we're making out? The kind who doesn't keep one eye on the window and run off suddenly in the middle of dates?"

"You still stuck your hands under her shirt, right? I mean, _priorities_, Grayson." Dick offers a sickly little smile. Actually, it's kind of a wince. "I mean, um."

Dick waves a hand, stopping Roy before he can wedge his foot any further into his mouth. "It's OK. I learned my lesson with the last one. Tammy noticed my scars and freaked out, and I had to tell her I had foster parents before Bruce who beat me. Otherwise she'd've thought he did, right? But then she kept..." Dick's face clenches the same way his fist does. "She kept looking at me like a _victim_. I just couldn't take it, you know?"

"I know." Roy scoots a little closer. Dick looks over at him, actually sees him, and Roy's chest feels looser and easier when he smiles. "What we need are hero girls our age."

Watching Dick grin feels like grinning himself. "I don't think there are any, Harper."

"Maybe not yet, but there are several chick heroes, one of them's bound to get a sidekick, right? Or--- hey, maybe you'll meet a supervillain's daughter! A mysterious beauty, raised as an assassin---" Dick's sitting up by now, so Roy waves his hands eagerly. "---and your love will convert her to the side of good."

Dick laughs, head tipped back. "Yeah, right, Roy. And _you'll_ meet a, a gorgeous alien princess, exiled from her distant homeworld."

"With big tits! And really, really long legs!" Roy cracks up, and for a few moments they laugh till it rings off the ceiling.

Then Dick rolls out of the chair, instead of getting up like a normal person, and dives over the arm of the sofa, but he lands without kicking Roy in the face, so Roy really can't make himself say anything appropriately snide. "Not likely, huh?" Dick asks, but he's smiling.

Roy shrugs. "Probably not. But a guy can dream, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, he can dream." Dick flops down against Roy, dropping his head on Roy's shoulder and staring at nothing. After a minute he shuts his eyes and sighs and just sits there contentedly, like Roy's a good pillow. Roy makes himself keep breathing, and after a few minutes go by and Dick doesn't vanish, he lets his own eyes fall closed.

*^*

"Kory, this is the most irresponsible-- oh, my God. Are you OK?" Dick grabs her shoulders as she falls to her knees in the hot white sand. The long flight's wearied her as much as a battle, and she lets herself slump with one palm pressed to the glowing grains, but Koriand'r already feels somewhat restored. The sand reflects the sunlight back to her, and with energy bathing her from both sides she'll be fine in relatively little time.

Now if Dick would understand that, and stop tugging at her shoulders. "Kory, talk to me!" She waves one hand at him as best she can, and he responds by wrapping an arm around her beneath her breasts. She likes that feeling, but not quite yet.

When she summons a starbolt's glow he finally lets go and steps back, long enough for her to catch her wind. "Dick, I'm fine." She presses both hands into the sun-drenched sand and breathes in the warm salty air. "Give me a moment."

"All right, but." Dick's frowning. Kory sighs. That wasn't what she'd intended. "You just picked me up, and flew us halfway around the world, and--- where _are_ we?"

"Australia." She takes another breath and sits back on her heels. Dick's still frowning with his mouth but his forehead's smoothing out, and his eyes are wide and blue as the sea behind him. That's what she'd intended, and she smiles at him. "A beach." A quiet one; she enjoys people, but Dick would just feel responsible for saving everyone if anything went wrong.

"Apparently, but--"

"The shortest day is so _cold_ in your city. I thought I'd bring you to the warm side of the solstice."

"Kory." Dick smiles at her, too small but better than the frown, and it makes his beauty bittersweet. "I have things to do at home. It's three days to Christmas."

"When the Sun sets here we'll fly to morning." Koriand'r lies down in the sand and stretches, and watches Dick's eyes move across her skin, watches his smile spread out to what it should be.

He shakes his head, but he sits beside her, sighing as he settles onto the warm sand. "I don't know if we can even stay," he says, though his hand is folding around hers. "We didn't exactly enter the country through Customs."

Kory just squeezes his hand and laughs at him, till he laughs too.

 

*^*

"How was it this year?" Dick's voice echoes faintly from the shadows of Tim's apartment.

"Uneventful." Tim shuts the window behind himself and unsnaps his cape. "The tree's about a meter taller. The Mayor praised the Police Department." When he toggles his lenses, Dick shows up as a faint grey blur in the darkest corner of the living room. "How's---" Whatever city Dick's living in. By now Tim's reduced the possibilities to three candidates.

"Fine." Dick's still not saying. He never even so much as smells like whatever city it is. Instead of further conversation, he walks over, dressed in completely nondescript grey sweats and tee, and reaches for the catches on Tim's tunic. For a moment, Tim leans into the touch of Dick's fingers on his throat.

Then Tim lifts his hands to unhook his belt, but allows himself the indulgence of letting Dick disarm the charge, and shrugs off the tunic while Dick pushes his hands over his ribs. Dick peels the tee up over his head, and tunic and shirt thump onto a chair but not before Dick wraps his arms tightly around Tim.

Tim breathes against Dick's chest and presses fingers into his shoulders, clinging as best he can. A year ago they crouched on a rooftop and watched Bludhaven's Municipal Tree Lighting, scared a pickpocket into going back to school, and headed back to Dick's apartment. Dick made Tim come three times, laughed at him for trying to stay awake, and watched him fall asleep, and it was... It was good. The next day Tim went home to Dana and his father and a tabletop tree; that night Steph danced around in flashing LED jewelry and Barbara laughed on the comm, and the present Bruce and Alfred gave him failed to be traumatic in any way.

It was good.

Dick's hands move down Tim's back, unerringly finding every new bruise, checking over every old one. Tim presses his face in a little more tightly under Dick's chin, feels Dick's breath warm in his hair. He would smile, but that smile belongs in an apartment that's been incinerated. He would say "Merry Christmas," but he'd choke. He would mutter something about how next year's got to be better, but the last time Tim allowed himself hope his father died anyway. So he just holds on.

Dick swallows twice, larynx bobbing against Tim's forehead, and he's obviously working himself up to say something. "Hey." Something he knows is idiotic, by his tone. "Um. Merry--"

Tim jerks back and leans up. He's not actually faster than Dick, but Dick only blinks at him, eyes glinting in the darkness. Tim manages at the last moment to pull the kiss, to make it something other than a blow. It doesn't matter, anyway, when Dick sobs against his mouth, clutches his head with one hand and his waist with the other, and kisses him back. It doesn't matter when Dick sucks hard over his pulse and bites his shoulder and they both groan. Dick slips to his knees, and Tim braces his hands on Dick's shoulders and trades a whimper for a kiss over his navel. It's not merry, but neither of them is dead, so far. It's Christmas.


End file.
